i am pleased to be part of this presentation as you will probably find out some of the most memorable days in happiest days of my life were the times i spent with robert kennedy. let me begin by offering praise for larry and his book bobby kennedy the making of liberal icon. what leary offers in the book is the result of extensive research including previously unpublished reports of reading materials from the kennedy library and access to people that other authors didn't have the most notably kennedy. ..

>> >> the his strength in compassion in courage shine through any perceived shortcomings from this large portrait. the book has drawn praise from far and wide from john mecham in secretary of state kissinger. the new york times book review praised in this fashion greenback to life

the young president who for a brief moment is still the hope for the future for a angry and fearful americans. what we will never know is what might have been, no one can say. new nixon, no watergate, vietnam? no one knows. but i do know that from the crushing pain that followed his brother's death he merged a wiser and more compassionate man and. as president coming he waited mitt his mistakes war would be the last resort. we would talk to our adversaries and listen to them. nuclear weapons would be in

new major and urgent focus. he would fight the corrupting than challenge the greedy and most of all remember the for gotten. those in the hollows across the land and better yet they would see that and that is what might have been robert kennedy said we can do better. never have those words, so we can do better have ring so true. you are a great writer who is written a great book i am pleased to introduce you. [applause]

>> what i would like to do to introduce a bobby kennedy to you is how many people have lived through the campaign? everybody so i will call a few appeared to tell your story. what i would like to do is take you through three moments in kennedy's life that was indicative of of who he was at three critical times. the first starts 1957. bobby kennedy's friend a and senator joe mccarthy from wisconsin was being buried in a town in wisconsin if you're not old enough to remember this was the

senator the basically saw a communist behind every state department door and shows up at the airport the day of the funeral with this enormous plane from washington and off the plane steps 19 u.s. senators mostly republicans and conservatives. a bunch of other dignity's going into the limousine and then they are whisked away to apple to in wisconsin for the funeral. after that it's very quiet and when there is a clear notion nobody gets off of played well last person does it is a thin young congressional man named robert f. kennedy. he finds that a reporter he gets a ride with him.

at the funeral it in the church a bobby kennedy watches from the choir loft. at the graveside service all the dignitaries are over here and bobby kennedy is over here. what he managed to do after the service in a way he could never get away with he got all the reporters that there was a young guy bobby kennedy and because he was a kennedy what that melendez, does that he was a loyal friend of joe mccarthy with not just his dad's friend the in the era when

much thought communism was a huge threat so did bobby kennedy you that there is only one person so while jack kennedy said from the funeral he did what he often does he ignore that so that was bobby kennedy the loyalist in you could say there was something noble the other half back then was bobby kennedy who do some day he may run for office himself. to make sure nobody would see him. so the two sides the realist side in that is to america

was back then. they start out as the cold warrior. intended any moment in life in 1963 bobby kennedy had come home from work on the justice department was swimming in his pool just outside of washington and was settling back to have a great munchy and go back to work. at that moment the phone rings in it is bought hot line into the white house. by the way it is a huge bone

of contention. is specially was not good news on the of the end of the line also one that he most hated in the world was j. edgar hoover. as a monotone and other communist at howard university. that your brother has been shot now somebody said your brother is dead. in that moment that changed bobby kennedy's life and a way that was different it just losing his brother he lost his brother, his best friend and the whole sense

of purpose. he was close enough to his brother from the time they which oversees the atf that jack kennedy was gone in as you can imagine was totally distraught in for the next month to give out assignments to that family. to do all of these things too wet to the white house to decide if it was an open casket. he held the hand of jackie kennedy in the john john and caroline a. have lost their father in jackie lost her husband the bobby kennedy

helped the country that was going through a morning that was more deeper and profound than they had ever had have happened. bobby kennedy was the mortar in cheaper over the next month. given how devastated he was. with that magical moment when months out the family started to pull that back together the wetback together with the ended there . of morning, and then kennedy lost it. to the next seven months ahead something that was described as a clinical depression and apple remembers 50 years later like it happened one moment ago basically to go out in the middle of the night to drive around in his car he would go to work but could

not sustain any attention in the beatings at the justice department he lost his sense of what he was doing he debated if he should become a college professor i am commits to what made a miserable professor but everything was on the table he should take is $10 million inheritance to go around the world he debated about a lot of things but he ended up running for senator from new york but not until the middle of the campaign that he started to come not of his depression and the moment that he realized he could lose the election that would have been a first so he started to have a sense that he really did have something to contribute and the other that people were responding to him turning out in droves to his rallies not because he was the

surviving brother but bobby kennedy who had something to offer. during that period when he was coming out of his depression, he came out as a different person at jackie suggestion he was reading greek tragedies for entertainment he would generally go out to play touch football and that is what he considered his destruction but now he would be in his room to read the greek tragedies and reading about the hubris that he has a kennedy had had thinking that the world was theirs to do as they want and then it crashed around him. he came back with an empathy he never had before price suspect if we interview everybody in this audience we were all somewhere between tough and tender but

with kennedy in the joe mccarthy days suddenly started to understand the underdog in the way he never had before. 1963 he came out of this miserable experience with whole the way of looking at the world and for all of the power that had disappeared and had to find a new role for himself. so it started with the tough guy in his 63 going through a traumatic experience that changed him. but were rigo for the third story is where he was when he ran for president they 1968. the story that i think has resonance today that you look around to get excited.

i want to take you to one night kinnear river the first contested primary? >> he has not been coached. [laughter] very good. syracuse said to meet gsa indiana. [laughter] possibly he picked a single state in america to have the first contested primary it would be in vienna he had no idea on anything in the midwest massachusetts board is in the bread as a senator from new york in this was new territory. and one night in the primary

flying into indianapolis in the middle of the city that is when he landed in indianapolis he was told that martin luther king had been shot and killed. the mayor of indianapolis richard lugar who went on to become a powerful senator he had one piece of advice which is you will not go into the african-american tonight as scheduled because i am worried if you will come out alive where he will create a riot. so bobby kennedy did like jack kennedy's and vice when he told them not to go to the funeral he said dinkey that is great but he proceeded to go to the rally [laughter]

he ends up having the police escort stopped just before the ghetto in the stephens upped:the back of the flatbed truck and for the next five minutes he gives one of the great speeches may be one of the greatest of his life or in the history of american political fortunes he tells the audience that night of several hundred people 90% for the first time that their leader has been killed . if you listened to the speech from the night you can hear the gasps from the audience and people are devastated but he proceeds to talk about what it was like to lose his own brother in the acreage he felt when jack kennedy was killed. our temptation is to want to strike out.

the we have to do the opposite. , together as a country and at this moment. so what happened that night was extraordinary. that night in the country of his death with the race riots in more than 100 cities in washington and part of the city was burned down that night but one city in america that a sizable african-american population in that city was philadelphia, indiana. [laughter] so indianapolis stayed safe because kennedy found that pitch perfect tone to go into the ghetto it was a tone that was predicted when much of the civil-rights movement gave up on what

kennedy was ever doing. into stick with him because someday he will get it. and evelyn kaye was proven right to that night that i think hillary clinton in donald trump barack obama all look for just the right healing tone and none of them could find the tone that kennedy managed at night in and from that moment to the end of the campaign i can say without hyperbole he was easily the most popular white man in america hitting ghettos across the country when he

campaigned there was a sure sign that said all that red right but all whites and urged many politicians in black america who have said that in 1968 but what i want to do is take you to whom kennedy was and why we should still care about him half a century after his death and i think many of us could spend the last 50 years looking for somebody able to do what kennedy was on the verge of doing in a moment where the country was ridden over racial issues or stressed out by what was going on overseas with the war in vietnam he was able to pull together a coalition we have never seen in this country the coalition of the

blue-collar whites to support him in his early days with the joe mccarthy cold war era. those that listened to him the coalition of a group those that were hispanics bobby kennedy was the only one who went to california during day hundred strakes in reaching out to the hispanics and they awarded him with almost 100 percent of the california primary to bring together the group that we do about today to of people that support donald trump is in hillary clinton and of the verge of becoming precisely a tough liberal or the tender conservative if you prefer that we're still

searching for in america and before i got one for questions, one of the most tender moments i have heard about who bobby kennedy was was from a guide named bill who talked about what happened after his dad died. >> my father died one month after president kennedy. , after my father died i'll tell you a couple of stories about that. would president kennedy died my father did not want to go to washington because he did not want to interfere with the moment of sorrow. my mother said to him you

should go down there he went down and went to the white house and cable and told me this story that he was walking up to the second-floor body came walking down they took one look at each other and they both cried. bobby kennedy really was extremely grateful if i had that experience because when my dad died one month later robert kennedy christmas season left his eight children in virginia where he came to philadelphia for read father's funeral. if he brought with him a letter from jackie kennedy which he had gotten from her the day before that since is the most beautiful letter

you ever want to see first of all. he came to the funeral. to sanders did you want to run for your father's seat. [laughter] he said they sent him up there and a lot of the organization said your father are lined up against you if they take you on but understand we will be there and i said can they ask you a couple questions? explicitly what does we will be it mean? [laughter] he said if they take you on

the kennedys will be all for your district in fact, several months later bobby kennedy came in there third year 40,000 people going for 19 straight to 30th street but even during that period i said who can i tell? he said tell them all. really what he said you can tell the maya and the attorney general because we will not lose this. he did not say that but bobby would not be in favor of doing anything but the last question he asked me was you need money? i said

i don't think so i have friends of my father's in he said if you don't have been enough you write the check and we will sign it. come see me in washington. i went to washington and walked into his office and i almost couldn't control myself never in all my life in not until this the scene a face that's out -- that sad absolutely he was crushed in heartbroken but so function he could not be at my mother's funeral and vice said i can't tell you what this means to me. lot of people that my father helped are against me.

but with everything going london your life but he put his head down and said don't you tell your father did for my brother? what he really did was not carried philadelphia by those votes when people credited my father for producing that victory he would laugh and say the people with elections politicians win primaries but at the democratic convention i talk about john the knotter. >> he was thought highest kelcey could take to anybody that was the point where

ethel kennedy said they would finish their sentences they did not need to talk they could just pick up their expressions bin that is why its closest there is another cliche that people talk about the four people elected to say this is the closest work relationship but nobody ever gives up power to vice president or anybody else the closest thing america has ever had to the cope presidency when bobby kennedy and jack kennedy was attorney-general he was also the pseudo cia director he melt more often than the secretary of state

jack kennedy knew he go to him civil-rights for the cuban missile crisis and bobby would have his back looking yellow was best for the country but also politically for jack kennedy and that was an extraordinary relationship. >> that is why he would hang back and mccarthy's funeral because he had to be there because he was loyal but it would hurt jack harper goes so he tried to have it both ways wanted to be loyal. >> he did and there was a magical 1957 even while jack was alive with his political career of he would joke that

bobby you know, that joe kennedy had initial aspirations to be president and during world war ii as the u.s. ambassador to great britain and he not at an opportune moment he went public and then denied it but then helped to get him fired in the moment kennedy knew it could not be him that it would be his son until joe, jr. was killed trying to take out some bombs in europe and then the middle was passed to jack then when he was killed the walkway and then it was

clear it would be bobby. i really had no opportunity the. but i did once. but he turns to my father is a vast cry was he said were you going to do? it was natural everybody had a nickname. [laughter] my father said i don't know. he said run for congress. what is so incredible about that is that i was. the body called me to help

so there is no way was for me. not just the indebted but how admiring was a the president is and bobby i think bobby just compound what happened with the president but their losses were so harmful to this country that it is hard to imagine one of the things they did in that i always believed is what you mentioned what he did in india and south africa every time a man stands up for justice he says for the tiny ripples of hope and to go to the berlin wall in my father's advice in the short period between the president's staff in

grandfather's death that my father went to new york december 8 through december december 4th he talked to bobby and i think some of the big city democratic leaders in the north were a little concerned that johnson may not be the candidate for bobby i don't know if he ever expressed at that point were gave any serious thought but there was a discussion in joe must have heard about it because lyndon johnson asked the governor of pennsylvania to check it out. >> so at that convention where johnson was nominated

nominated, at that moment bobby kennedy had no interest but apparently keos j. edgar hoover to have agents check out what was going on in the kennedy camp and then report back to him if they picked up anything if there would be a draft kennedy movement but it turns out the best speech was a speech that kennedy delivered depending on whose account you used 17 minutes of applause during his speech but it is what lbj thought it was about him in his paranoia about the loss of his brother into the end of the speech was the most rousing endorsement of lbj that kennedy was three things he was catholic, and joe kennedy's son in the

third pillar is he was a democrat and even though he detested lbj he would support him 1964. >> do we have microphones to people have a question there would like to ask? >> the robert kennedy was thinking of running and i wrote a letter and said dole into the campaign you were going to divide the anti-war

movement three weeks later after he announced he sent me a letter that said as you can see i have entered the race neither one will go to a convention with enough votes they will be the compromise candidate three weeks later i received a letter he said as you can see i have entered the race but i disagree with you and i am not defining the anti-war movement i am adding my voice. i said to myself you are signing your death warrant. and then the warda commission report that when he announced he was going to

run that was it. there is no way that the people who killed his brother would allow him to be president. >> there is no way to get around the fact to be clear really did love robert kennedy but it was an awkward entry into the race and i would have preferred if he was going to that he did it earlier. he did it for days after mccarthy beat lbj in new hampshire. >> but this is before she got into it to and he looks like the ultimate cutthroats politician ellen mccarthy do

the tough work in new hampshire then candidate -- the committee takes a with a mantle in now said to a telegram tuesday what your brother has just done shows that state patrick did not drive all the snakes out of ireland. [laughter] but the truth is if you look at what happened the evidence is clear cut that nine days before kennedy had decided to enter but it was only fair that mccarthy had been fighting for a long time it was fair to give him that shot so while he was being a gentleman to do the kind of thing that the campaign manager asked him to do he endeavor hurting himself with the press almost the entire campaign

where reporters would come around the by the end of the campaign one of the ways the offer dramatic contrast to what is going on today is the press and the relationship of the candidates today we go donald trump starts by bashing and then vanishes the press from the event but clinton spends way to much time ducking the reporters but kennedy started off with the reporters the skeptical but by the end of something strange happens it was one of the things that drew me into the body kennedy story in the beginning they started to fall in love with him. my mentor who won a pulitzer prize for his coverage in vietnam ended up writing a book that was a valentine to kennedy he covered the

campaign for the "washington post" was assigned by bradley to cover the campaign because he was very cynical and he thought the perfect guy to cover it he could never be won over by the end he made a peak -- a plea to bradley i have fallen in love with the candidate. as an ex-marine and hard-edged i think the reason they fell in love with him is what they are looking for today as a candidate who was authentic. the political press in those days could figure out who was real and they decided by the end that bobby kennedy was the one who had the courage to stand up in the senate to save my brother jack and i got into vietnam

the and we were wrong. that is not something i'm sure that others had agreed that many political figures do but kennedy and the way he shifted from the cold war to the hot blooded liberal in the end was shoot through those political whims of the day and something that i think the public was trying to see in that we was agreed that after his victory that night in california that i he was killed at the ambassador hotel after his victory he was scheduled the next morning to go to chicago and the son of richard daley who was the obama chief of staff for a couple of years said that next day his had a

70 percent chance he would endorse kennedy for president there is no more powerful a establishment bin richard daley back then it i think if he endorsed we had guys in philadelphia ready to go all-out for bobby kennedy i think not only would he be the nominee but nobody in america who understood richard nixon's vulnerabilities better than the guy who eight years before led the successful campaign against nixon and i don't think it is too much of the what if to say bobby kennedy would have been the nominee and the president and from date number 12 ben to impassioned and impatient to wait so from day number one and he would have made a difference. >> if you did not mention that at some point i was

going to say one of the things that i did not know or see anyone else write about was the fact that daily might have endorsed then now i can tell you that the night before kennedy was killed, i was strategizing what we would do with arthur schlesinger we spent a half-hour strategizing about philadelphia and i said that night with kennedy that the league would be with him. i think it's he was fairly confident that he would endorse him since i left the next morning during the primary because i had its work to do here i watching this speech on television

would to bed and at 4:00 in the morning got a phone call backs its this is for caulking morning kids' it wait? the reporter said he's been shot. i cried. i prayed and then i fell asleep. but i believe now if daily would have been there that would have greatly and he sensed his stance is that we will never know. we will never know what could have been. >> since nobody can prove me wrong i will add one of l.f. -- another. [laughter] it's been back in those

days, do we have a question if? >> you describe that hierarchy of the kennedy brothers what was the relationship of john and bobby to teddy? >> in the hierarchy of the brothers what was the relationship of the kennedy brothers is where did ted kennedy fit into their relationship? ended three was bad one of the suns would go into the priesthood. [laughter] but if they had done that he would have been pope because that is the kind of guy that he was. [laughter] he was intellectual and rose above things if he would have been a parish priest because that is you he was

that with kennedy -- with ted that never would have, but i and a massachusetts by arguably my best dory for about 15 years and i think kennedy was with the greatest senators ever they called him the lawyer and of the senate the reason why he spent 50 years not try to emulate her is in his brother as he was a short-term senator in didn't make much in the senate i think ted kennedy tried to be bobby id he so adored his brother when they were senators together when ted was the senior senator he was elected before bobby, and the only time the staff never knew where they were is the there were visiting one another's offices and everything

mattered of who was the elder kennedy got to choose his issues and ted kennedy looked at other issues they adored one another he emulated bobby and when bobby died ted for the rest of his life felt the pressure that i bitchin' before when one of the sun sties the middle falls to the next. kennedy never wanted to run for president but that is something that ted was thinking it was his responsibility the party kept turning to him that he was happiest as the u.s. senator when he unsuccessfully challenged jimmy carter. >> so to minder standing

that j. edgar hoover got permission from bobby kennedy to put microphones in the motel to blackmail martin luther king. >> is that correct? >> the first half is correct j. edgar hoover kept going back to ask permission and the reason why was because there was a fear without any convincing evidence in the hierarchy. and at the moment day edgar hoover survives and he knew

and to ask repeatedly and in the end bobby kennedy and gave for strategic reasons. they were about to propose a major civil-rights bill the most embarrassing thing in the world to turn up in that have built a camp and to use that to embarrass the kennedys. of the idea that the wiretap did provide information that bobby kennedy wanted dash circulating is the opposite. to realize what was happening to tarnish the reputation of the transcript but it was too late. remember our story from what

state? [laughter] >> indiana. >> bay for gave kennedy at a point with a proteges said he is no good. that wiretapping is a bad thing. by the end of his tenure he was calling in the federal troops to stand up. is a did tuscaloosa in birmingham and montgomery to call in troops early hint by the end there is nobody in america not just with civil-rights but that was

ending poverty so when nesting want to say but in his life he had four great enemies one was j. edgar hoover and other was to we have discovered in recent months was a guy named ray: and he blamed all of that because mccarthy was the boss. he hated grey he hated j. edgar hoover and detested the jimmy hoffa bobby thought he was corrupt those people you could argue was the good reason to do test bed number four is the tragedy and that was lbj. constitutionally they were

so different one was harvard-educated its who grew up rich in massachusetts the other for mixtecs grabher pour and resented anybody to talk like bobby kennedy and had they ever united in a collision they could have gotten more extraordinary things done they both wanted civil rights to end poverty in the a.d. at cross purposes leads a huge tragedy and one of the things that made lbj more determined than ever was that kennedy called for him to come out of vietnam every time he gave that anti-war speech is seen as the key would increase the bombing in north vietnam tellus sometimes you have read this

>> i have read it twice. [laughter] and his wife. >> she read that five times. when he gets home he says did you read it again? [laughter] >> that was one of the things of the book. >> what lyndon johnson did was a civil-rights bill to his credit to but bobby in charge of getting it through. faugh -- but the purpose was if it failed he had bobby to blame. there were two purposes. >> that was one purpose he wanted dash and new there is nobody better the you have to understand it was a better bill that he ended up with is the only one of his

advisers kennedy was cautious enough to wait until the reelection in 64 and that is who he was essentially all they a couple of years in age. but we know what life is like a generation but bobby kennedy listed in the navy and pcs active duty coming in and out of port and now was the war entered -- injury that he ended up with so the rest of his life he felt little inadequate because he did not fight a war is so much of his life but when he was born in in their early generation of

the nine kennedy kids thought it was described as a the read of the litter. he spent his life working harder than any of his siblings to show his dad he was not the rent and could get things done in the end joe a doll is the kid that was most like kim and one the key most adored that was made executor of his estate in there is nothing more important of who executed that is state and his son bobby kennedy. >> i have been fascinated by the journey so my question is about this journey.

runabout that much more conservative? >> id node this woman but that was the perfect last question how with the older bobby kennedy judge the yogurt? when i thought i was being tough or too tough i used that standard precisely what would he have said? about the mccarthy era i think he would have said yes america was anti-communist did joe mccarthy in his early days was standing up legitimately against communist threat he would have said early bobby kennedy was tone deaf to all of joe mccarthy victims the

way that robert kennedy would not have led him get away but the early bobby kennedy went to vietnam since in said we will stand by you because we thank you can win the war ended is important. what other primary authors of the u.s. counter strategy was bobby kennedy. in key step in the senate toussaint was wrong. he did that issue after issue. the bad body and the good body. and the dominant personality to run for president and it is said accidental that barack obama and hillary clinton and looked as there will models to any politician to bobby kennedy

to be though one. so joking ahead written books on strange topics of including non superman but i was just like to present their shirts to bill green. [applause] but give him a wonderful round of applause. [applause] >>

[inaudible conversations] . .

the narrative and the media reports. can you start by summarizing what you found in this piece? >> the president did authorize the execution i execution of thf osama bin laden and the seals did kerry get out and that is a fact it was done in the resort town about 50 or 60 miles uphill from islamabad and it's a place that in the